Re: "Just in Time" management

["Derick Wuen" <cullend@webone.com.au>]

One of the traps for transport providers is to supply, inter alia, free
storage as well as transport. Consider, for example, the stockpile
represented by the storage of coal in some (high?) percentage of the 13000
non-air coal hoppers in the Newcastle coal trade and the investment in the
"nests" of sidings which stored them whilst awaiting their turn at
unloading. Replaced by onground storage and conveyer system. Rail wagons are
too expensive and specialised bits of industrial equipment to be frittered
away on storage duties.

By the way.... JIT stock control is generally attributed as a Japanese
invention which shifted costs of storage from users to suppliers of input
goods. Look how the Japanese economy is performing!

JIT management (as opposed to JIT stock control) seems like an oxymoron to
me.

JIT stock control as applied to railways would seem to indicate that
transport capacity is supplied to customers in the quantities they need at
the time they need it. I can't see whats wrong with that.

Chris Brownbill wrote in message <390A7974.BDCF42DA@enternet.com.au>...
>There's a great article in the Business pages of yesterday's (Friday)
Melbourne
>Age which rips into the religion of "Just in Time" management.  About time
I
>say.
>
>For those who aren't familiar with it - "Just in Time" is a process of
supplying
>goods for manufacturing in which absolute minimum stock levels are
maintained,
>and supplies are delivered in small lots just as they are required.
>
>Just in Time, in theory, saves the purchaser having to warehouse
materials - BUT
>the article makes the point that this simply means that the upsteam
provider has
>to warehouse them anyway.  JIT also increases the vulnerability of
manufacturing
>processes to failure in the event of a disruption anywhere in the process
chain
>because there is no buffer of supplies.
>
>Railways are not well placed to implement Just in Time because JIT requires
>frequent deliveries of small consignments whereas rail is better suited to
>larger shipments.  It could be that JIT has been responsible for
significant
>loss of rail business to road over the past decades.
>
>If this article is an indicator of an emerging common sense in the business
>world turing their backs on JIT, then it could be VERY good news for rail
>freight operators in Australia and worldwide.